A fished this pretty little pit in May last year and loved the tranquility. Being a bit earlier in the year the reeds hadn't grown as high on this occasion and the lily pads were still to show themselves. So I was unsure how it would fish.

I had taken bread, corn and some maggots left over from the previous week. Unfortunately the maggots had turned and were, therefore, no use for legering. I started on bread and at first there wasn't any action. I had ground baited with crumbed seedy bread mixed with crushed boilies.

It was a while before I got the first indication of a bite. The cork bobbin dropped slightly. But it came to nothing. Suspecting that bread might be too much of a mouthful this early in the year, after an unseasonably cold spell, I changed to three pieces of sweetcorn.

After a couple of further drop backs the bobbin dropped to the ground, so I struck and was into a decent fish. On the bank it turned out to be a beautifully coloured fully-scaled carp of perhaps around 4-5lb. A good start.

I continued with sweetcorn but in the absence of further bites, and in the knowledge that carp were feeding, I changed back to bread flake. Small drop backs continued and when I hooked one it turned out to be a bream of around 2lb or so. I don't catch many bream so I welcomed the opportunity to catch this species.

My ground-baiting had, I think, got the bream feeding as I continued to get drop back bites and these resulted in quite a few bream. I think I had around half a dozen in all.

I missed a more positive bite that took the bobbin up to the rod, having left the baitrunner engaged when I was setting up the bobbin. A subsequent positive bobbin-lifting bite resulted in a smallish tench that I muscled in somewhat, thinking it to be another bream. It was my only tench.

Then came a false hope, when I thought I was landing a large crucian. In fact I wasn't sure whether it was a crucian or not while I was at the lake, but more careful inspection of the photographs later showed that it wasn't. It seems to have been a hybrid, possibly with some goldfish in it! The elongated lower fins and the tail fin ruled out the possibility of a crucian. But just for a short while I was quite thrilled.

Even though it wasn't a crucian, it was a fine looking fish that fought well, so I'm not complaining.

It was approaching packing up time and I caught one more bream, making six in total, one of which was foul-hooked.

As the clouds thickened and the breeze increased, it was clear that rain was on the way, as forecast. So I packed up a 3.00pm very happy with my few hours fishing.